After months of frustration We Rule: The Hidden Grimoire the book is one step away from publication. I would like to tell you it’s ready, but I’m gun shy after months of frustration with Book Baby.

I did finally receive my iBooks account, the account that allows me to sell books, today. So unless another major setback occurs (like when iBooks accidentally sent me to the free books set up without explaining the difference, forcing me to set up a second account with a different id and email), I should be able to announce the book sometime this week.

Once I have the book available in iBooks, I’ll start preparing it for sale in Kindle format for Android gamers.

The good news for gamers is that with all of the setbacks, I was able to make some last minute rush changes to make the book as up to date as possible. The published version will include the new challenge to groves for upper end players, residences.

Carol and I are also rushing to finish the final proofread of Raising Hell, which you can sample in the pages section of the blog.

Speaking of residences

In case you were worried that ngmoco:) is getting ready to abandon the game, some of the new additions give hope for the future. Developers most recent releases have had major bonuses for players at higher levels, which means they are looking for strategies to keep players interested.

Remember the old days when players would stack row after row of rubies in their realms? In the days before ngmoco:) decided to shut the practice down, albeit unsuccessfully? They didn’t stop the stacking but they limited the number of groves you could buy with coins.

Players with lots of coins who have reached L61 might be interested in the new bird residences which, at least until ngmoco:) reads this blog, has no ceiling for installations in one realm. They deliver 350hcp and cost 50000c. This can get expensive, but you can actually pack 1365 into a single realm (leaving room for a very necessary harvest orb) without stacking.

They released the residences after the chess king (L80) which delivers a whopping 450hcp idle. I spent 140 million coins installing 70 which deliver 943000cp every 30 hours. A realm filled with bird residences costs 68 million coins by contrast and delivers 478000cp every hour on the hour.

I was able to fit 1365 bird residences and a harvest orb into one realm without stacking. ngmoco:) developed them to overlap on two sides so that you can add 37 to a row.

In other words, for half the investment, you get the same return if you only collect twice in thirty hours. If you collect six times a day, you get three times the return. Realistically, you can only collect twice every three days from the chess king. If you only collect three times every day for three days, you earn three times as much as the chess king delivery.

This is one of those cases where hourly return doesn’t always result in the best payoff. In addition, if you start to fill two realms with bird residences starting from the time they become available at L62, you can buy all the chess kings you want when you reach L80.

You don’t have to do this at one. Two rows of bird residences cost 4 million c. By L61 you should be able to add a couple of rows a week. And by the way, in case you were wondering, if you did stack you could fit just under 5500 residences at a cost of 240 million c and a finger tip worn to the bone.

In the past I’ve always promoted residences as a replacement for groves as your income grows and you can afford to add two or three a day. But I’ve always though ruby groves were the best investment at lower levels when cash remains hard to come by.

In fact, if Book Baby ever gets around to releasing my book, you will discover that’s still my opinion in the official Grimoire. However, things change and the new mongol residence is that game changer.

Mongol residences deliver 65xp every hour (20c) for 13000c (4m). This is only 5000c more than a ruby grove (and half the mojo) which delivers 30cp an hour but every six hours. You have to clock in every hour to make mongol residences worth your while, but they will be worth your while.

Best of all, you can get them at L18. This means you can start adding them to your kingdom before you can start installing ruby groves.

The mongol residence delivers 85cp every hour. You can start installing before you become eligible for ruby groves.

Should you forego ruby groves altogether? I wouldn’t go that far. Rubies still earn more over a stretch longer than three hours, and I doubt you will be able to cash in on mongol residences 24 hours a day. You will also reach a point where it’s no longer worth your while to harvest every hour or two. When that happens, you will find the groves pay off far better.

I would recommend a mix of two groves to one residence (two to two max). Once you can start installing the higher value residences, however, especially the Persian residence, move on. The mongol will lose its value the higher your level.

I noticed a disturbing trend in one of my realms recently. Time and time again the harvest orb wanted to know if I would complete 666 harvests.

If you saw this often enough, wouldn’t you consider it to be an omen? I mean, this number, of all numbers, the mother of all symbolic numbers. I found it truly disturbing.

If you don’t know the significance of 666….Well, how could you not know and still live in the 21st Century? After all, we see the number in every Omen movie and just about every other episode of Supernatural. We had a president with six letters in all three names only 30 years ago, and a second whose name would have spelled “666” if he was smart enough to spell.

I knew what it signified. The coming of the Antirule. The time when We Rule would be overcome by deadly corporate interests who would replace medieval whimsy with cheap commercial greed.

I showed my findings to Carol. I asked her if this could be the end of We Rule as we know it. She said, “Add another building.”

And that’s how I saved the world of We Rule. I now have 667 buildings to harvest. Crisis averted. The Lord works in mysterious ways.

Hail Odin statue

A reader asked me to do an analysis of statues, which was timely since I had planned to do one anyway. Glad to know I’m in synch with my audience.

Most statues in We Rule are mere ornamentation, but a few deliver coins and experience. Several, such as the Ganesh statues, are gifts and can only be acquired by the luck of the draw. I included them in the Idle Income charts. But a couple can be purchased and deserve a closer look.

Just because a statue earns, doesn’t mean you should install it for income. The stone bull pillar, which costs 18000c, returns a lousy 20hcp. You’re far better off with just about anything if you want a serious return on your investment.

Odin’s statue, on the other hand, returns 183hcp every 18 hours and takes up about the same space as a grove. This is three times the return of a Poseidon fount for only twice the price (180000c). The Persian lion only costs 60000c and returns almost 90hcp every 20 hours. This is two thirds of the cost of a fount with half again the return. The Khmer Lion turns around every six hours at 120hcp for 80000c.

Odin’s statue is the newest in a series of high return statues that become available around L40. Statues tend to take up less space than other items, which can increase their value. The persian lions are minuscule compared to Odin.

So far the statues are luxury buys, which may be why they are available only at higher levels. They also tend to be limited to a few dozen per realm, which means you can’t plant as many. Players should concentrate on groves and residences first, but once you realize you are making enough to buy one or two a day (and not per week) it would be a good time to start adding a few.

As always, you shouldn’t worry about the initial investment cost. Higher priced items may take longer to pay off, but once they are paid off the performance return makes them far more valuable.

Not much news for blog’s return

I’m running behind on the articles I took time off to write, but I thought I should take the time to review the latest developments, or lack of them, in We Rule.

Once Christmas ended, and the incredible outpouring of items from the We Rule shop, ngmoco:) began to slow things down. Only three items have been introduced for Halloween, although they may still release some items on Valentine’s Day or Monday. Quite frankly, I’m relieved.

But I’ve also noticed that they’ve been sloppy and lax lately. They took a couple of days to add the splash screens to announce several items. Their blog and Facebook entries have been noticeably uninformative, especially about event rewards beyond the traditional two items.

Interestingly, they removed the experience point leaders from the leader boards but still have the leader listings for the Thanksgiving event (three events ago) without posting leaders for the two that followed. Okay, I had fallen a hundred places or so in the leaders when they dropped it, and perhaps they were afraid that new players would be scared off seeing leaders with three billion points.

The landing strip and craft factory that were rewards for the most recent event were the coolest in a long time, maybe ever. I really liked the steam punk crafts as well. Too bad we won’t know who collected the most. ngmoco:) hasn’t updated event leaders since Thanksgiving.

Still, I have to think that’s a motivation. If Zimidar can earn three billion points, so can I. Admittedly he will probably have twelve billion by the time I collect my three, but still. I’ve never had a billion anything (except maybe molecules).

The rewards for events haven’t been that lucrative either. In the past you could count on the last reward for every second event producing the highest yield of any building in your realm. The return offered on the three events since Halloween have been decent, great for players at lower levels, but far less rewarding than shops available for coins at L60 and up.

So I have to wonder if DeNA isn’t growing as weary of We Rule as some of the players seem to feel (or so it seems by their comments). I’m not sure what happened. Perhaps their ceaseless push to sell mojo finally put off a lot of players and they had to downsize the development, design and marketing teams.

Maybe they just decided to squeeze even more profit by cutting back.

I am happy with the pace of new item releases, but I would like to think they’re responding to player requests to slow things down, not losing interest themselves.

Idle income bargains

I would like to point readers to two real bargains for generating idle income. The best, the golden temple, is only available to players at L59 or above and it’s very expensive. It’s also hidden next to the milliner’s shop in the build menu (at least in my build menu) and not with the items available around L60.

If you have coins to burn, this is a great way to burn them. The temple returns 430hcp (337 in xp) every 15 hours. You can add up to fifty a realm. Granted the cost is high (1 million coins) but by the time you reach L70, 337 xp hourly for a million coins is a good trade off. (It basically comes down to 750000 xp every two days for every realm with 50 temples).

Cupid’s cottage is another good deal, delivering 130cp every hour. You can get them at L23. Yes, you have to check in hourly to collect the full value, but let’s break down the numbers. One cottage costs 15000c, and delivers 780 points in six hours if you make every collection. Two ruby groves deliver 360 in six hours and cost 16000c.

That cute Cupid’s cottage can be incredibly lucrative if you’re willing to spend more time with the game. You can collect 130cp every hour.

When you’re at L23 you’re starting to get eager to level up because the number of experience points needed to jump starts to grow exponentially. If you want to install a Cupid’s cottage instead of 2 groves, and check in every hour or two, you will make the jump much more quickly. (If you only check in every six hours, the groves are the better deal.)